Thoughts from the interface of science, religion, law and culture

After spending several years touring the country as a stand up comedian, Ed Brayton tired of explaining his jokes to small groups of dazed illiterates and turned to writing as the most common outlet for the voices in his head. He has appeared on the Rachel Maddow Show and the Thom Hartmann Show, and is almost certain that he is the only person ever to make fun of Chuck Norris on C-SPAN.

EVENTS

ADF Attorney Caught With Child Porn? Not Really

I’ve had several people send me this story about an attorney “associated” with the Alliance Defending Freedom (formerly the Alliance Defense Fund) being arrested and charged with a host of sexual crimes with a minor, but I think far too much is being made of that connection and we shouldn’t be crowing about it or pointing fingers at the ADF. But what she allegedly did is pretty vile:

A Manchester lawyer took a teenage girl to Canada, had her engage in sexual activity and convinced her to let it be filmed, according to federal indictments…

A few hours later in U.S. District Court in Concord, Biron, who is associated with a national coalition of Christian lawyers, was formally told of the federal charges against her: transportation with intent to engage in criminal sexual activity, possession of child pornography and five counts of sexual exploitation of children.

Judge Landya McCafferty decided to detain Biron yesterday, largely, she said, because she is believed to have broken most of the bail conditions imposed on the district-level pornography charges.

But here are the details on those associations:

Biron was briefly associated with the Donais Law Offices in Manchester before her arrest; she is now on an indefinite suspension.

Biron is associated with the Alliance Defending Freedom, a group of lawyers who, according to their website, are committed to keeping “the door open for the spread of the Gospel” by advocating for “religious liberty, the sanctity of life, and marriage and family.” In Concord, she worked with the ADF in defending a Pentecostal Church on Mountain Road in its tax fight against the city.

She recently served on the board of directors at Mount Zion Christian Schools in Manchester, according to the school’s headmaster.

On Biron’s Facebook page, which was taken down in recent weeks, she had listed the Bible as her favorite book.

Point to it as yet another example of an anti-gay, “pro-family” Christian covering up their sexual predation? Absolutely. But the “association” with the ADF is pretty weak here. It appears that she was the local attorney who worked with them on a single case. She didn’t work for them, she was involved in a single case. The ADF works just like the ACLU does in this regard, contracting with a local “cooperating attorney” to handle such cases. If an attorney in Keokuk, Iowa who once worked with the ACLU on a single case was caught doing something terrible, we would find it ridiculous if someone said that proved something bad about the ACLU; the same is true here. Hammer her, but the ADF has no real connection to this.

Comments

She may not be strictly a member, but she did several hundred hours of pro bono work for them. That could be more than a single case. And that she did it for free certainly shows that she shares all of their ideology.

I can certainly see where someone who has a thing for underage children would look to the Bible for support.
I’ve long that it’s telling that of the 10 most important rules Bible-monster could think of up on that mountain, none of them condemned sexually or otherwise abusing children or raping women.

And that she did it for free certainly shows that she shares all of their ideology.

Right, the point is that her relationship with the ADF is a sign of her Christian fundamentalist attitudes, but the ADF has no responsibility for policing her behaviour the way, say, the Catholic Church is responsible for it’s bishops.

And if a lawyer who had worked for hundreds of hours on behalf of the ACLU was found to be keeping people in chains in a sweatshop? Or had worked for Amnesty International and yet was torturing people in her basement? I think it would be pertinent. The reports aren’t meant to “discredit” the ADF (their own ideology and practices do enough on that score), but to highlight yet another incidence of hypocrisy among the vocally self-righteous bigots who parade around as representatives of Christian morality.

I agree with Ed: this does not necessarily reflect badly on the ADF. No organization is going to succesfully screen out hitherto-unidentified sexual predators every time, least of all if they’re not organized to deliver childcare or child-oriented services.

Initially I was confused by this story, but I guess there must be a town in the US also called Manchester? The original one is a large city in the North of England, so initially I was under the impression the lawyer was English.